TARAA volunteer and Fletcher High School sophomore Jenna Thompson keeps a litter of 10-week-old mastiff-Lab puppies entertained as she fields questions about the dogs from prospective adoptive families.

A litter of mastiff-Labrador puppies was brought in from a foster home to TARAA's weekly adoption event. Now spoken for, the puppies were given collars before they were picked up and after families completed adoption paperwork.

Every Saturday around 11 a.m., Jennifer Coscia rounds up kittens, puppies and people at the Petco store at Marsh Landing. She’s had the same date for 10 years. As founder of The Animal Rescue and Adoption Agency of Jacksonville, Coscia has followed this routine for a decade.

Since late 2004, weekend adoption events have taken place at the Marsh Landing Parkway pet store, spurring more than 4,000 adoptions. Today, the events net an average of eight to 10 animal adoptions each week in the Beaches community. Coscia said her nonprofit, a no-kill rescue agency, is on par to complete its typical 400 annual adoptions, with about 200 adoptions in the first half of 2014.

Coscia’s work, and that of others, demonstrates that while Beaches communities may not be experiencing the current pet crisis that has Jacksonville’s no-kill pet shelters overflowing at near-double capacity, that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to be part of a humane solution.

During a mid-July adoption event, Coscia set up pens and training pads, double-checked handwritten descriptions on a list to tell a litter apart, and successfully placed five puppies and five kittens into new homes, gently fitting collars on the spoken-for puppies.

While other Beaches rescue agencies tend to be niche or breed-specific, Coscia accepts all breeds, even injured, abused and pregnant animals. Many are heartworm positive or in need of surgery, and TARAA relies on public donations for medical expenses. Many of the donations come from the Beaches communities.

Coscia, a 25-year veteran of the pet rescue scene, attributes the overfull Jacksonville shelters to the city shelters’ attempts at becoming “no-kill,” coupled with a large pit bull population.

“Our city has tried so hard to become a no-kill zone, but the pit bull population is huge, and it’s hard to keep up with that,” said Coscia, who began her activism in 1989 at the North Shore Animal League in Long Island, New York. She explained that the number of stray animals usually spikes in the summer months.

Neptune Beach Animal Control Officer Denine “Dee” Zagari said the Beaches area differs greatly from the pet situation in the city limits of Jacksonville. A small shelter on Neptune Beach property holds enough space for up to five dogs. When Zagari gets a call about a stray, it’s usually a lost dog that’s quickly reunited with its owner. Dogs are only held on average about five days, and orchestrating an adoption is rare.

“In the two years that I’ve been here, I’ve had only about five surrenders from pet owners. It’s really limited here in Neptune Beach,” Zagari said.

Last July, 24 cats were removed from a condemned Neptune Beach house. Their elderly caretaker surrendered the animals, many of which were sick from living in “deplorable conditions.” In that case, the city’s facilities were overwhelmed, and Mayor Harriet Pruette asked the City of Jacksonville for help, citing the interlocal agreement. The incident was a rare occurrence in the city, and made headlines as a result.

Since then, Zagari said Neptune Beach Animal Control has worked closely with Jacksonville Animal Care and Protective Services. That the cat hoarding case was isolated and that strays are infrequent in Neptune Beach doesn’t mean that Zagari isn’t interested in keeping the number of animal surrenders low.

“As an animal control officer, I highly encourage spaying and neutering, and I use educational factors to spread the message,” she said.

Spaying and neutering aren’t optional for dogs and cats adopted through TARAA. Each pet comes with a handmade “security blanket,” rubbed on their siblings for the familiar scent, and a certificate for a spay and neuter appointment, redeemable after the animal is 4-5 months old. Coscia also has potential adopters fill out a questionnaire to vet them before the process begins.

“We want these animals in homes, so we don’t want to alienate people,” Coscia said.

The influx of stray pets in Jacksonville has caused the city-run Animal Care and Protective Services Department and the nonprofit Jacksonville Humane Society to turn to the use of foster homes, a core operating procedure with TARAA.

Coscia uses a network of about two dozen families that have joined TARAA through word of mouth. Coscia’s Northside home, while not a shelter, serves as a hub.

Puppies stay in foster care about two weeks before being adopted, dogs are usually housed two to three weeks before an adoption and kittens and cats stay for upwards of a month, a trend that Coscia attributes to an oversaturated cat population.

“We love our foster failures,” Coscia added. “That’s when a foster family ends up falling in love with a dog or cat, and they end up keeping them.”

Fletcher High School sophomore Jenna Thompson belongs to one such family.

“Some of our puppies and cats have become permanent members of the family,” she admitted.

The Thompson family has been fostering animals for the past five years with TARAA, a task that earns Thompson community service credit at Fletcher High.

TARAA adoptions are held with the blessing of Connie LeBlanc, Marsh Landing’s Petco store manager, who also fosters dogs for TARAA. On a recent Saturday, LeBlanc showed up with an 11-week-old mixed-breed puppy named Brinkley. In the past, LeBlanc has kept the store open for 24 hours for TARAA to host a “Howling and Meowing” event, where almost 100 pets were adopted. The store registers are also set up to receive donations to support TARAA, with a record $5,000 raised during a four-week period over the holidays.

Jennifer Hall, an Arlington-area resident, has been fostering cats and the occasional dog for TARAA for nearly a year. She and her 16-year-old daughter made the decision when they lost their two elderly cats. Hall said the decision was a simple one: They had a home to offer for homeless pets.

“It’s awesome to see these pets get adopted,” Hall said. “There are cat people, and there are dog people. Very few are neither. That sums it up.”